D
I feel exactly the same way. Only reason google is making this device is to exploit its users. Same reason they make the chrome browser. It has nothing to do with making a profit on the HW. The buyer is the product via exploitation.
No thanks. You want cross platform go buy a Roko or install 3rd party airplay apps on Windows and Android clients
. How much is your privacy worth? Hopefully more than $65 per TV. What does this work out to spread over the life of the TV? Less than a dollar a month? Yeah. Great deal. Right.

Privacy worths nothing nowadays. NSA knows everything about you. Google, MS, FB, Twitter, even Apple are feeding NSA everything. The only way is to be not using the web.

Sorry... but no. Apple never has followed any other tech company with innovation or the timetable that a different company chooses to bring to market their devices/tech... until THEY themselves are ready with THEIR products. That is when and if they think they can truly add something for a better user experience.

Wow, 3 months free Netflix covers more than half of the cost. I'll go get mine.

Yeah, I was on the fence before realizing that it came with 3 months of Netflix, which makes the effective cost $14. At that price it's so cheap that it's going to sell really well, and the third-party support will certainly follow.

I own two Apple TVs, the original, and the $99. I'm sorry, but these arguments over remotes are lame. The AppleTV remote is much much more difficult to use than a touch interface. Remotes get lost, often you have multiple remotes for multiple A/V boxes, it's just a mess. Then you buy a universal remote to solve it, but it's still irritating to try and navigate a rich content repository using directional buttons.

If Apple had shipped ChromeCast, people would be saying its brilliant. Use iPhone touch surface as the remote! Strip out all of the unnecessary HW. Shrink it down so small it literally fits behind the TV. Brilliant. Amazing. Magical! Johnny would be superimposed on a white background talking about how much love had gone into it.

Instead, Google shipped it, and now people are trying to make excuses, classic cognitive dissonance and tribalism, even though it is patently obvious that a touch UI is better for browsing your media content then a standalone Apple TV with crappy remote. Also, all players have been gradually moving to a streaming model away from a "download" sync model. The only reason to download is to cache for travel, or if you've got a really shitty internet connection. Realistically, the future in TV is streamed content, and these kinds of devices are ahead of the curve.

The fact that this device runs ChromeOS also means it will continuously update and upgrade itself just like Chrome. It also means developing video frontends for it is pathetically easy. And it means people might even modify it to support AirPlay.

Simple. Cheap. Effective. Every once in a while you've got to swallow your pride and admit a competitor did something good.

Wow. Have you ever used an Apple TV? You can use your iPad or iPhone as a touch remote. Have been for a loooonnnngggg time. You can also pair a blue tooth keyboard. You are either being deliberately disingenuous or need to RTFM.

What the Chromecast is missing that the AppleTV offers is that other part, the streaming of stuff from your local network or directly from your devices. At least so far. Google evidently told The Verge that an AirPlay-like feature that allows the content of Chrome Web tabs to appear on the Chromecast is coming, but that’s a far cry from being able to stream a movie or TV show stored on your phone or tablet to your TV. (Google didn't reply to my request for clarification by the time this story was published.) [Update: According to Google, this feature will let you transfer the URL of the browser tab you're using to the Chromecast, but the device's own embedded browser will display it, not your laptop or phone.]

So, if I understand correctly. all the Chromecast content comes (is streamed or played) directly from the web -- and must accessible via a URL.

All that the Chrome browser on your mobile device or desktop computer does is fling the URL of the web content to the Chromecast -- where it takes over and plays the content from the web to the TV.

If you have content (audio, videos, pictures, presentations, Podcasts, etc. on your mobile device, computer, home theater/iTunes -- it can not be streamed from these sources to the TV via the Chromecast!

I watched the Google preso of the ChromeChaste... it was misleading!Edited by Dick Applebaum - 7/25/13 at 4:26pm

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

So, if I understand correctly. all the Chromecast content comes (is streamed or played) directly from the web -- and must accessible via a URL.

All that the Chrome browser on your mobile device or desktop computer does is fling the URL of the web content to the Chromecast -- where it takes over and plays the content from the web to the TV.

If you have content (audio, videos, pictures, presentations, Podcasts, etc. on your mobile device, computer, home theater/iTunes -- it can not be streamed from these sources to the TV via the Chromecast!

I watched the Google preso of the ChromeChaste... it was misleading!

At least one part of that is not true according to the first comment on Amazon.

Q: Can I stream from sources other than the Web, such as another computer or a NAS on my home network?
A: I just made it work, from a Windows 7 PC by placing file's path into the browser's address and it worked with a video file that was on an NAS (HDD on my home network).

For your first point, I don't see what the big deal is, none of apple's product photos show the power cord. Who's going to see it once you plug it in? it all goes behind your TV.

For your second point, for many TVs you don't have to switch a thing.

For your 3rd point, and your later UI point, they are related. The netflix app on the iPad has a better UI than any other device that plays netflix. Now that is your UI for watching on TV.

Someone earlier said this was a "geek device" when really it's the complete opposite. Most of Googles products are junk. The Google TV had the worst possible UI. I bought one and returned it in a week. But this thing has the absolute best possible UI. And this is coming from someone who has an apple TV connected to every TV in our house as well as one in our conference room at work.

Set aside your bias and think about how brilliant this design is. Apple simplified the remote, Google got rid of it all together. You find your content the exact same way you would find it to play on your iPad or iPhone, then you play it on your TV with one button. The TV doesn't have to be on. It doesn't have to be on the right input. You don't have to find our touch your TV's remote to start watching, to pause, to fast forward, to change the volume. And you get the same 1080p quality you would get from AppleTV or any other Netflix device.

To be fair to Apple, building this with no remote wasn't possible even a couple of years ago. It absolutely depends on most people already having smart phones or better yet tablets.

The main question is will other video content providers support it. Vudu, Amazon, HBO, Showtime, etc, etc.

What is so great about the Netflix UI on the iPad. I hate the Netflix UI. There is no browsing capability to speak of. The search sucks and doesn't find anything. The Netflix UI on the iPad is exactly the same as the UI on Google TV. Why is the Google TV UI awful? There are a number of awful things about Google TV that I'd like to change, but I don't think the UI would head my priority list. I use Google TV almost daily and if there's one thing I want to see changed is the closing of the loop between search and the content (coming from Comcast in my case). When I first read about Chromecast, I was unimpressed. It doesn't really add anything for me - at the moment. I can see the value for a non network connected TV. I can also see the potential since the API will allow new Android apps to allow more content (far too limited at the moment). I can also see the enormous value in the ability to simply pocket it and take it on a trip. And the low cost so if I leave it behind in a hotel room, I wouldn't curse myself too much. But at the moment, it's too limited for me.

So, if I understand correctly. all the Chromecast content comes (is streamed or played) directly from the web -- and must accessible via a URL.

All that the Chrome browser on your mobile device or desktop computer does is fling the URL of the web content to the Chromecast -- where it takes over and plays the content from the web to the TV.

If you have content (audio, videos, pictures, presentations, Podcasts, etc. on your mobile device, computer, home theater/iTunes -- it can not be streamed from these sources to the TV via the Chromecast!

I watched the Google preso of the ChromeChaste... it was misleading!

At least one part of that is not true according to the first comment on Amazon.

Q: Can I stream from sources other than the Web, such as another computer or a NAS on my home network?

A: I just made it work, from a Windows 7 PC by placing file's path into the browser's address and it worked with a video file that was on an NAS (HDD on my home network).

Well... a NAS is a special case -- it contains a file server, so the file path is a flinged URL to a file that is served from the NAS -- and the browser running on ChromeChaste can stream from that file server (as can any browser).

But if the file on the computer or iDevice is not accessible by a server, (your camera roll on an iPhone, for example) it cannot be accessed by ChromeChaste.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Seeing as the #1 reason people buy an Apple TV is for Airplay (there's a source for that -- came out in the past 2 months), I think that Chromecast will be very popular -- especially if they sell it side-by-side in-store with the Nexus's. It's a neat little device that I would buy if I had an Android device; but I think the biggest difficulty in this selling will really be the amount of products sold that support it. Giving an SDK that supports iOS is going to make it a lot more popular if developers start integrating it into their apps like they do sending links to Chrome, but that's not a given.

P.S. does anyone know if it has an embedded wireless card and is doing this via an ad-hoc connection, or is it Wi-DI or Bluetooth? Can you be connected to the internet and still stream, and if so does the dongle have to be hooked onto the same wifi network?

Yup, this is an AirPlay type device only, from what the commercial indicates. I would also say that if Apple TV was opened up to allow apps like the other iOS devices, this #1 reason would vanish pretty quick.

Seeing as the #1 reason people buy an Apple TV is for Airplay (there's a source for that -- came out in the past 2 months), I think that Chromecast will be very popular -- especially if they sell it side-by-side in-store with the Nexus's. It's a neat little device that I would buy if I had an Android device; but I think the biggest difficulty in this selling will really be the amount of products sold that support it. Giving an SDK that supports iOS is going to make it a lot more popular if developers start integrating it into their apps like they do sending links to Chrome, but that's not a given.

P.S. does anyone know if it has an embedded wireless card and is doing this via an ad-hoc connection, or is it Wi-DI or Bluetooth? Can you be connected to the internet and still stream, and if so does the dongle have to be hooked onto the same wifi network?

Yup, this is an AirPlay type device only, from what the commercial indicates. I would also say that if Apple TV was opened up to allow apps like the other iOS devices, this #1 reason would vanish pretty quick.

Actually, you have that backwards -- it is not an AirPlay type device... It is a browser running on the ChromeChaste -- and it is streaming a file from a web or file server.

There is no direct file-to-file (screen-to-screen) transfer between the two. For example, with AirPlay, I can play a video that exists on my iPad to the TV via Apple TV... same for games, pictures, an ad hoc KeyNote preso, a live tutorial of how to run, say FCPX or PhotoShop on the Mac...

With ChromeChaste, you could only do this if you anticipated the need in advance -- recorded the file and uploaded it (or otherwise make the recorded file available to a web or file server).

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

I think totally missed his point of the question you answered. Yes it will work as soon as you select it but you have to use a device such as an iPad, Mac or iPhone and keep that device running. The AppleTV doesn't need a device, it works all alone!

This is a really dumb argument. 99.99999% of the people that would use this device are carrying around a iPhone or Android device in their pocket. Using an old school remote control to use an Apple TV is absurd and hardly a reason to believe that Chromecast is inferior.

When the automobile was invented, nobody said, but it doesn't respond to a buggy whip.

Yup, this is an AirPlay type device only, from what the commercial indicates. I would also say that if Apple TV was opened up to allow apps like the other iOS devices, this #1 reason would vanish pretty quick.

Exactly. ChromeCast is great news for Apple users. Apple will be under a lot of pressure to open up the Apple TV to third party apps. Even then, it may not matter unless Apple opens up Airplay to other platforms, which is very unlikely.

Fact is, Apple is not the right person to fix the home TV problem. It is now obvious to me that Google and content providers are going to do it. The only use you'll have for an Apple TV is to play iTunes content and iOS games. Apple is not going to take over the living room.

No need to run. I think that is a good example how Apple takes things very seriously when they do screw up... which because it's humans running the company... happens from time to time.

Big heads... and I'm sure a few "little" ones that we'll never hear about... rolled after hanging TC like that. Same thing when Apple botched MobileMe and SJ had to "kindly" remind everyone where and who they work for (which is for the users first, Apple second BTW).

Once again, I think no one would be "cheeky" enough to claim that Apple just "flings stuff" to see what sticks, nor are they poked and prodded to do anything. It happens to be the main thing that Anal-cysts, bloggers and tech-geeks hate about Apple: they are not swayed easily and it's rather rare if ever.

That plus the decades long Pact of Secrecy of course. For another time.

Knowing what you are talking about would help you understand why you are so wrong. By "Realistic" - AI Forum Member

Yes Chromecast will sell very well and probably eat into AppleTV sales. Hell, I might even buy one! Best way to counteract any decrease in AppleTV sales would be if apps were offered for it or, best scenario, a jailbreak for AppleTV3 surfaced ;)

Yes Chromecast will sell very well and probably eat into AppleTV sales. Hell, I might even buy one! Best way to counteract any decrease in AppleTV sales would be if apps were offered for it or, best scenario, a jailbreak for AppleTV3 surfaced

It won't touch Apple TV sales. This device is nothing like Apple TV and lacks most of apple tv's selling points. Mainly airplay. Also the lack of wired connection is a big downside. If I can't airplay from my devices, mirror my ipad screen (or even use as an additional monitor with separate content in mavericks) then it isn't an Apple TV competitor.

This device will have disappeared within the year as another failed attempt by google.

It won't touch Apple TV sales. This device is nothing like Apple TV and lacks most of apple tv's selling points. Mainly airplay. Also the lack of wired connection is a big downside. If I can't airplay from my devices, mirror my ipad screen (or even use as an additional monitor with separate content in mavericks) then it isn't an Apple TV competitor.

This device will have disappeared within the year as another failed attempt by google.

In all fairness the device just launched, some of the applications from developers already enable airplay like features such as streaming images or video from your devices gallery. HBO has also shown interest in Chromecast. Once again, this is only the start for Google, the SDK was only launched to developers a week ago.

In all fairness, that doesn't matter. The fact is that you cannot stream from a device to the Chromecast directly. It all goes through the "cloud". What this means is that if you want to play a video on the device, the video has to be made available on the cloud. The device simply queues Chromecast to playback the video or audio from another location. This means unless you have blazing fast Internet, it's not going to work well.

In comparison, the AppleTV allows point to point streaming. I can also use it as a monitor for my laptop, second screen for my iPad or iPhone, etc. You cannot do this with the Chromecast. Even sharing a web page in Chrome is very limited and choppy because it's going through your Internet connection, using up your data, etc. Oh, and Google and listen in on this and advertise to you, collect your data, etc.

In all fairness, that doesn't matter. The fact is that you cannot stream from a device to the Chromecast directly. It all goes through the "cloud". What this means is that if you want to play a video on the device, the video has to be made available on the cloud. The device simply queues Chromecast to playback the video or audio from another location. This means unless you have blazing fast Internet, it's not going to work well.

In comparison, the AppleTV allows point to point streaming. I can also use it as a monitor for my laptop, second screen for my iPad or iPhone, etc. You cannot do this with the Chromecast. Even sharing a web page in Chrome is very limited and choppy because it's going through your Internet connection, using up your data, etc. Oh, and Google and listen in on this and advertise to you, collect your data, etc.

That's not entirely the case, Koushik Dutta used his AndroidAsync web server to share videos and pictures. The web server is running on the device itself.